Clay Johnson wants us to write 500 Words before 8am:

Starting your day as a producer means that your information consumption has meaning: the rest of the day means consuming information that is relevant to what it is that you’re producing. Waking up as a producer frames the rest of your habits. You’re not mindlessly grazing on everyone’s facebook’s statuses. You’re out getting what it is you need to get in order to produce. Waking up as a producer is procrastination insurance.

“Procrastination insurance.” I like that. This is tricky when you have a 2-year old that you want to read stories to in the morning, and you also need to get a run in before work. But there are other ways to apply this principle. I write most of my longer pieces at night when the family is already in bed. This is not ideal, but I do most of the planning in my head early in the morning while doing other tasks. I also tend to do a lot of design work in the shower – it’s uninterrupted time to think about a problem and come up with possible solutions. Maybe I’m rationalizing, but I choose to view this morning thinking time as part of producing and providing focus for the day to come.